Floodpath
Subtitle: the deadliest man-made disaster of 20th-century America and the making of modern Los Angeles
By: Jon Wilkman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Press
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 326
ISBN-13: 9781620409152
Subjects: Floodplains; Floods; Dam failures; History
Description: "Just before midnight on March 12, 1928, the St. Francis Dam, a twenty-story-high concrete structure just fifty miles north of Los Angeles, suddenly collapsed, releasing a devastating flood that roared fifty-four miles to the Pacific Ocean, destroying everything in its path. It was a horrific catastrophe, yet one which today is virtually forgotten. With research gathered over more than two decades, award-winning writer and filmmaker Jon Wilkman revisits the deluge that claimed nearly five hundred lives. A key figure is William Mulholland, the self-taught engineer who created an unprecedented water system, allowing Los Angeles to become America's second-largest city, and who was also responsible for the design and construction of the St. Francis Dam. Driven by eyewitness accounts and combining urban history with a life-and-death drama and a technological detective story, Floodpath grippingly reanimates the reality behind L.A. noir fictions such as the classic film Chinatown. In an era of climate change, increasing demand on water resources, and a neglected American infrastructure, the tragedy of the St. Francis Dam has never been more relevant."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-310) and index.
Table of contents: title: Monday; title: The Chief and the City of the Angels; title: "There it is, take it!"; title: Holding back the future; title: A monster in the dark; title: No time for nightmares; title: The dead zone; title: Sympathy, anger, and amends; title: Arguing over the ruins; title: Los Angeles on trial; title: Rewinding time; title: Hasty conclusions and high dams; title: Paying the price and moving on; title: Unfinished business and historical amnesia; title: Charley's obsession and computer time machines; title: After the fall.